2013 NCAA Tournament Preview: No. 16 James Madison vs No. 1 Indiana

By Joseph Nardone

Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

In the wonderful world of college basketball nothing would be more amazing than a 16 seed upsetting the top seed in their region. The James Madison Dukes are going to be trying their best to do just that against the Indiana Hoosiers. However unlikely, James Madison has fought their way to this point and are not going to just hand over the win to Indiana. Still, Indiana is the number one seed for a reason and are going to try to curb-stomp the Dukes back to irrelevancy.

What to Watch For

Indiana is going to look for the Dukes’ jugular early. Expect the Hoosiers to come out ready to run and gun their way into an early lead. Don’t expect a lot of half-court sets, but rather a faster tempo style of basketball while they try to literally run James Madison into the ground. The Hoosiers have more talent, so the quicker James Madison has to call on the bench, the quicker this game will be over.

James Madison needs to control the tempo. As previously eluded to, Indiana is going to try to force the Dukes into a style of basketball not suited for a team with less talent. Expect the Dukes to try to eat as much time off the shot clock as humanly possible and make every single possession count. Who knows, maybe James Madison can hang for awhile.

Prediction

Indiana is a better team. Only if Tom Crean lets Tom Arnold do a lookalike switcharoo would James Madison have a shot.